How can we stop police from abusing their authority?

We have clear and convincing evidence that police departments across America have an unacceptable number of police officers who are angry, afraid, aggressive, on steroids, racist, poorly-trained, too quick to pull the trigger and unaccountable for their behavior. They expect special treatment and get it.

So why should they change?

And we have a “thin blue” line rule, which means that by virtue of being an officer, cops are expected not to report other cops when they break the law. This blue line, unfortunately, has become a superhighway. Not only do otherwise legitimate cops not report bad cops… but police chiefs, mayors, governors and grand juries are willing to cover up illegal police behavior and refuse to insist that officers obey the law. This destroys trust and costs lives.

When I criticize police for bad behavior, I am told that since I’m not a cop it’s none of my business. I guess that’s what cops tell grand juries to get a get out of jail free card and a paid vacation. But when police abuse community members, or kill them, it is my business because these officers work for you and me.

Here is some first-person testimony from Reddit Hudson, a trained police officer who recognizes the same problems I have seen and documented. He offers suggestions for solutions:

“The problem is that cops aren’t held accountable for their actions, and they know it. These officers violate rights with impunity.

They know there’s a different criminal justice system for civilians and police. Even when officers get caught, they know they’ll be investigated by their friends, and put on paid leave. My colleagues would laughingly refer to this as a free vacation. It isn’t a punishment. And excessive force is almost always deemed acceptable in our courts and among our grand juries. Prosecutors are tight with law enforcement, and share the same values and ideas.

We could start to change that by mandating that a special prosecutor be appointed to try excessive force cases. And we need more independent oversight, with teeth. I have little confidence in internal investigations. The number of people in uniform who will knowingly and maliciously violate your human rights is huge. At the Ferguson protests, people are chanting, “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.” I agree, and we have a lot of work to do.” read the rest of the article here: